I Caved In To Chinese Tuition Despite What I Preached

For the longest time, I thought I was a cool parent. “No tuition for my kids!” I declared defiantly more than a few times since I became a mum almost a decade ago.

My husband and I stuck to our guns all through the preschooling years of our two older boys. While other kids were attending Berries class on the weekends, we were sending them for nothing other than swimming lessons (a non-negotiable for me).

This isn’t to say I never worried about how my boys’ Chinese proficiency, or lack thereof. Their writing – even their own names – resembled chicken scrawls more than respectful pictograms of our heritage. Or that they had problems following the plot of any Chinese-language TV show. Or how having to revise their ting xie (Chinese spelling) occasionally drove them to tears.

It’s okay, they will eventually catch up, I told myself.

Until my middle child waltzed into my room one afternoon, announcing that he had gotten 5.5 marks out of 30 for his P2 mid-year mother tongue review. “I guessed all of the answers,” he laughed.

Not so cool after all

His nonchalance was the straw that broke the camel’s back – and a moment of personal revelation. Turned out my “chillness” with academics had its limits.

In my mind, learning is supposed to be joyful, and by extension, easy (right?). Perhaps I was too idealistic in assuming that even if our kids weren’t going to be top students, they were not going to flunk any of their subjects in primary school; and that they, the students, would naturally want to get better at a weak subject (no, they don't).

Or maybe I was too confident in thinking that I would be okay even if they did flunk. After all, our boys were only in P3 and P2 – PSLE wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Why was I getting uptight?

“If they don’t get the hang of the language now, they’ll be lost in upper primary!”

“But it’s OK to fail their tests once in a while. The school will provide remedial classes.”

(Googles “how many times can students retake PSLE?”)

The back-and-forth in my head was about as exciting as a wet sock hanging on the laundry rack. To most parents here, it's not a big deal to get help for mother tongue. Students who attend classes aren't even necessarily lagging behind.

But for me, this was a jarring incongruence with my belief that children should spend more time on play and learn through life experiences. Yet when I say that "grades don't matter", do I mean that deep down if I am still expecting my young children to be self-motivated to do better?

I had flashbacks of myself as a P3 kid asking my mother for Chinese tuition when I scored a respectful 85/100 for a test - I was pretty book-smart. She rightfully ignored my request. My point is, I couldn't reconcile the lived experience of my perfectionist inner child and the carefree nature of my boys who still don't care if they are wearing their shirt backwards.

This was how in the middle of 2024, I decided to give myself some peace and do the typical Singaporean thing – engage a Chinese tutor for my two older boys.

I do not envy educators

The day our Chinese tutor – a very kind 40-something motherly woman – came to our home, I knew I had made the right decision.

The weekly 1.5-hour Chinese immersion isn’t just a nice-to-have, but necessary to connect our children to their ethnic roots, roots they will lose if they do not start practising the language now.

Each lesson was as uncomfortable for the kids as it was for me and my husband when we were around to catch snippets of it.

The very pregnant pause each time the tutor asked a question was not out of disrespect, but the sheer processing time it took for our children to understand and formulate a response.

And the very bad poop jokes that boys crack in their mother tongue make me want to hide under a rock.

I do not have a fraction of the patience of our tutor – there are certain tasks that simply need to be outsourced for our sanity and our relationships.

The boys have questioned more than once why school was necessary or why they needed to "do better" at mother tongue. I wish I could have a loftier response that doesn't include "getting through the system", "having more options in future" or "even the westerners are learning Mandarin!". Cringe.

No end in sight

I have always told the kids that once they get comfortable with and confident in their mother tongue, tuition would be off the table.

Unfortunately, I don’t see it happening anytime soon. But for all their disdain for class, the kids have gotten better at understanding the language – our oldest recently almost teared while catching a random episode of a Taiwanese soap drama. And both of them passed their year-end exam and review respectively.

Could we be turning a corner? My fingers are crossed.

I have also conceded that despite my best efforts to be laissez-faire with academics, our fast-paced education system still manages to give me energy-wasting anxiety.

Will my kids be okay if we do nothing? Chances are, yeah, they will probably pass through primary school in six years. And they will forge their own authentic path into teenhood and adulthood without our meddling.

It is usually the adults who need to be reined in, and not feel the need to influence the trajectory of our children’s lives. It is a lesson I find myself learning and relearning ever so often – that all the children need is our love and acceptance. Everything else is just noise.

But meanwhile, Chinese tuition continues. Sorry boys, not sorry.

Mei Yan is mother to three boisterous children and two furry felines. She writes, teaches yoga and reads the Tarot, and hopes to pay off her sleep debt in this lifetime. You can find her musings on mindfulness and healing @chillandchakra.